


Hammerhead

by littleblackbow



Category: Marvel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4549710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackbow/pseuds/littleblackbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint gets injured, Wade makes sure he's okay, then leaves. While in the hospital, Clint remembers a few things Wade had said to him that make him re-think his feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hammerhead

The funny thing was, it wasn’t even the first time Clint had been hit in the face with a hammer. When he was a kid, there was that one time he and Barney were out back, making some kind of machine to do their chores, and somehow the hammer that had been balancing on the one piece of scrap lumber slid off, and hit Clint right in the forehead, cracking his skull and sending him on yet another trip to the hospital. Barney always claimed that was what gave him the brain damage.

  
But being hit in the face with a hammer when you’re five is actually a much easier recovery process than when you’re hit in the face when you’re forty. And the fact that it happened after the fight was over, and he’d just gone back to see if the mama dog and her litter of puppies were still in the rapidly disintegrating building made it all that much worse. Or better.

  
From his semi-conscious state he wasn’t quite sure which.

  
He tried opening an eye, but found they were bandaged over so tightly he couldn’t even manage to squint one eye open. “Blind and deaf, huh?” he muttered to himself. There was no way of knowing if anyone else was in the room with him. The painkillers made it difficult to feel anything - let alone something as subtle as another person’s body heat.

  
A few moments later, however, he felt a hand on his chest just under his neck. It was a gloved hand - too big to be Nat’s or Kate’s, so he figured it might be either Steve’s or...

  
The hand moved away.

“No, wait,” he managed to slur. His mouth felt like it was filled with wallpaper paste.

Clint felt his right hand being picked up and manipulated to form a letter in ASL.

Y.

He let his hand relax a little.

O.

Clint instantly recognized the letters being spelled out.

U.

Whoever this was certainly knew him well.

A. R. E.

“Who is this?”

A.

F.U.C.K.I.N.G.

I.D.I.O.T.

A sliver of a smile crept across Clint’s face. “Wade?”

There was no answer in sign language, but he could feel the person sit in a chair next to him and take his hand, lacing their fingers.

“I’ll be... okay,” Clint told him, trying to keep himself awake for his visitor. He felt another hand rest gently on the top of his head, then smooth back his hair. With all that warmth and the painkillers running through his system, he couldn’t manage to stay awake.

 

The bandages didn’t come off for another two days. And when they did, Clint found that the right side of his face was so swollen from surgery that he still could only manage to open one eye. A crowd of his friends and comrades were in the room, carrying on as if they were assembled for a regular Thursday night beer and pizza party. Steve and Tony were ruthlessly beating Sam and Bruce in a game of Bridge. Nat and Bobbi were talking about some movie they’d just seen, and Carol and Wanda had taken to the back of the room, chatting about something.

Vision was busy installing Clint’s other hearing aid. “It is good to see that you are recovering well, Clint,” he said in his usual stiff voice. “Although I cannot say you are looking as well as you have in the past.”

Taking in his surroundings, Clint tried to remember just what had brought him here. “What happened?” He remembered the dogs. “Are they alright? The puppies?”

“He’s on about those dogs again.” Tony mumbled.

Steve gave him a harsh look, then turned to Clint. “They’re fine. They seemed to get out of this whole situation a lot better than you did, my friend.”

“You got hit in the face with a sledgehammer,” Nat added. “Don’t do that again. It looks like it hurt.”

“Not to mention the seven hours of reconstructive surgery.” Tony slapped a card down on the table. “Don’t expect me to pick up the tab for all of your idiotic antics! But... still, I got this one.”

His memories started to come back to him all at once. Someone had been helping him on this mission - Deadpool. Wade had been there. It certainly hadn’t been the first time they’d worked together, but there were a few things that he’d said...

“Are you feeling okay?” Bobbi asked, taking his hand.

Someone else had been holding his hand. And there was something he’d said. Something Wade Wilson had said to him before he ran into that building.

_I like working with you._  
_We make a great team._  
_You sell yourself too short there, buddy._  
_What makes you think you’re a burden?_  
_I don’t know what anyone else says, but I think you’re amazing._

There was more. Clint was sure there was more - things Wade had been telling him all along. But none of it made any sense at all until the memory of that hand in the hospital room.

“Where’s Deadpool?” Clint asked.

“What? Oh, he got out just fine, of course. You don’t need to worry about him. What, he heals up better than anyone. Does it even hurt him? I mean, does he feel the pain?” Everyone was talking at once, and Clint couldn’t really tell who was saying what.

 

Yes, it hurts him. And no, he didn’t get out just fine. And of course I’m going to worry about him.

“Mr. Wilson was the one who brought you out of the building and called the paramedics,” Vision told him. Everyone else fell silent. “He was here during the surgery and has listed himself only as your immediate family, so he was the only one allowed to visit you while you were in ICU. That is until Mr. Stark had me hack into the computers and change things.”

“Don’t use the word hack. We didn’t hack, we logged into their system and corrected an error in their data. That’s all,” Tony insisted.

“Where is he now?” Clint asked softly, feeling somewhat sleepy again.

“Now? We do not know. He hasn’t been seen around here lately. Would you like me to look for him?” Vision asked.

“No. It’s okay. I think I just need to sleep now.” Clint closed his eyes and listened to the people shuffling around him. It wasn’t long before he was asleep again.

 

Clint dreamed of puppies and crumbling cinderblocks. He dreamed of hammers and tools and old barns filled with scrap two-by-sixes. He dreamed about sign language and warm hands and aching cheeks. And he dreamed about warm words thrown at him off the cuff, and some harsh words that ached of care and worry and something even deeper.  
When he woke, the room was quiet and dark with just a sliver of orange from the setting sun coming in the window. His hand was being held again.

“You’ve got your ears in this time.” Wade spoke softly. He started to pull his hand away, but Clint tightened his grip and wouldn’t let go.

“Yeah.”

“You look like shit.” Wade shifted the chair so he was turned to face Clint.

“So do you.”

“Yeah, but I’m supposed to be the ugly one and you’re supposed to be the handsome one. You’re not keeping up your end of the bargain, buddy.” Wade was dressed in his hoodie, wearingan Oilers’ cap pulled down over his brow.

 

“I don’t remember signing on for that.”

“You don’t remember much with those drugs they gave you, do you?”

Clint squeezed Wade’s hand. “I remember enough.”

There was a long pause, then Wade let out a breath Clint hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. “Look, I know it’s all a little awkward and stuff, but just know that I didn’t actually do anything. I mean, I just... you’re a fucking idiot and going back in there for the dogs, just to be hit in the face with a sledgehammer - that’s something else, man. I mean, I’ve been bashed in with sledgehammers plenty of times and I coulda told you that--.”

Clint lifted Wade’s hand and brought it up to his mouth, placing a soft kiss on the back.

There was another long pause.

“Hawkeye, if you’re fucking around with me, I swear I’ll...”

Clint smiled. “Come here.”

Wade scooted the chair closer and leaned his head over close to Clint’s face. “This isn’t out of pity, is it? ‘Cause I don’t need your pity.”

“I think there’s something that I didn’t realize until this happened. I’m not like the others. I’m kind of an Avenger, but I’m not really a hero. I’m just this guy who screws up a lot and seems to be really lucky when it comes to not getting killed. And yeah, I care about the others and they’re great and all, but all of those things you’ve said to me, they make me feel like there’s someone else who might understand the struggle.” Clint brought his hand up to the back of Wade’s head. “And I don’t know if it’s partially because of the painkillers that’s making me think these things, and I honestly don’t really care. I just know that with all of those people in the room, when I woke up, I was looking for you.”

Wade pulled the hood off of his head, turned his hat around, and pressed his forehead against Clint’s. “I’m having kind of a bad skin day, so if I smell like a rotting corpse, I’m sorry.”

Clint chuckled. “I’m having kind of a bad face day, so if I can’t kiss you right now, I’m sorry.”

After a few moments, Wade let out a short breath of air, then leaned down and gently pressed a kiss to Clint’s lips.

“See, that wasn’t so bad. Just a bit of halitosis, nothing like kissing a corpse,” Clint whispered.

“Oh, but that wasn’t even a real kiss. Just wait until I’ve got my tongue down your throat. That’s like a double-test of the gag reflexes.” Wade smiled, then rested his head on Clint’s chest.

“Sorry I didn’t notice sooner. And I’m sorry for going in that building and... what happened, really?”

“You went in there, got the puppies out of the workshop, and then as you were going back in for the mom, a hammer slid off of a piece of scrap wood and hit you right in the face.” Wade closed his eyes and smiled. “The doctors said it looked like it had happened to you before on the other side of your face. Are you sure you’re not somehow related to Magneto - only just being able to attract hammers to your cheekbones?”

“Who knows. Stranger things have happened.”

“No kidding.”


End file.
